Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Teaching Children Well: A Sacrificial Commitment

Do you remember your first favorite teacher? I do. She made
me feel like I could do anything and that I was destined to make a contribution
to this world. She made me believe that the peculiar details about my life were
enough by themselves to demand her full attention. I mattered in her class. It
would be almost 20 years later that I would truly understand what made her
great.

The first two and half months of my teaching career were days
without nights. Each morning, I left my studio apartment in Baltimore city just
after 5 o’clock, and returned 19 hours later. A bus would
take me into downtown and then out again to the furthest part of my district.
With freshly graded papers in hand, I managed to make it into class just before
my students. Later, I would bundle a stack of newly gathered papers under my
arm and wait in the summer heat for the bus. Once home, I would fully waken
from the bus rides and begin grading papers in preparation for the next day.

I loved it.

To see light-bulbs go off in a student’s eyes after the
sequence of a meticulously planned lesson works; is rapture! The ways students
smiled when they entered my class (on good days), or vowed to be better (on challenging
days), was what I lived for. But it was in the bus-rides and back-aches that I
really understood my high school teacher. Every smile she gave was expensive. There
is honor in that. Survey after survey ranks teaching as one of America’s most prestigious
professions. But how many really know the sacrifice it takes to teach just one
child well?

It takes a life.

If there’s any beauty to a story that contains two
near-nervous breakdowns, a car accident on the way to work, two slashed tires
and numerous shirt-grazing pencils, it’s that my story is not unique. Teachers
who love children commit to it for life. Our commitment always goes beyond a
day, a year and often-times a career (most teachers retire – to teach again).
When we are at our best, we combine proven praxis with a desire for heart level
connections with children, sincere interests in their lives and unyielding
passion for their safety and success. This commitment, however, has always been
on shaky ground.

Do you remember the most recent teacher scandal? Or your
first worst teacher (it’s possible both are one and the same)? I do. It
reflects poorly on all of us, every time. The prevailing notion is that the
teacher you are thinking about now and the teacher from the beginning of this
article are actually different teachers. However, without a set of guiding principles
shared by all educators, the first teacher could very easily become the second.

We need a code of ethics.

Swiss writer Denis de Rougemont once said that "love
ceases to be a demon only when he ceases to be a god." A code of ethics
then, takes our passion, desire and commitment from lofty and ethereal realms to
a plain and practical place where our diverse backgrounds and beliefs don’t
pre-dominate the professional principles that should be common to us all. This
code is an agreement that honors our sacrificial commitment by creating a
common language and understanding of the promise we give to every single child
and their family, the moment we assume the role of teacher. Within this
framework, the under-service of black and brown children becomes more than
immoral - it becomes unethical. By defining our norms, this code can guide a
diverse teaching force through dilemmas and situations where boundaries can be
blurred through the lens of upbringing and good intentions. The code is what
could help our first favorite teacher, stay that way. In fact, if we are to consider
ourselves a true profession on par with doctors and lawyers, we need a code of
ethics.

Ten years later, my mind floats back to those early days. Do
I still operate with that same commitment? I have listened to countless
educators express that the increase in testing, over-reliance on student data
and injection of politics has squeezed their commitment dry. We now listen to
people who have never felt the joys and pains wrapped in the sacrificial
commitment it takes to teach children well tell us how broken our life’s work
is.

We are tired.

Despite these outside forces advancing upon this great
calling, I believe there’s hope. We start taking back the conversation over our
work by seeing ourselves as true fiduciaries in the field of learning and
establishing a code of ethics that allows us the freedom to self-govern if
necessary, but also collaborate on what is the least acceptable standard of
excellence that will honor our life-long commitment.

Josh Parker

2012 Maryland Teacher of the Year

@MDTOY2012

2/24/15 – 11:40 p.m.

Editors Note: The
National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification
(NASDTEC) have written the first ever nation-wide Model Code of Educator Ethics.
It is now available for public comment at this location: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DMCN6XF